Duration: 1 minute 48 seconds
Date of the work: 2018
Medium: Single channel video
Exhibition history: Art+Feminism (2020); Prestorjha (2023)
Tabone started researching the female figure in prehistoric art around the same time she was working on Reverse Nostalgia in 2018/2019. Pre- Herstory is a video art piece that introduces this initial interest in this subject matter, which she produced along with a series of other works as a way to explore the artistic viability of delving deeper into this theme.
While researching prehistoric sculptures and art objects from a creative and feminine perspective, processing information through visual language and academic publications, Tabone developed an understanding of historiography from a predominately intuitive standpoint. Fat, fertile, mother earth, Goddess, and Venus are among the many names and descriptors given to the prehistoric art figures found around Malta and Gozo. She proposes that this perspective can changes radically if it is hypothetically assumed that these objects were made by women. In a female-centred culture, rather than a male- dominated one, it is possibly easier to imagine a different life balance connecting the spiritual with whatever is considered natural. This video work was first exhibited as part of the series PreHerstory during the Art+Feminism 2020 exhibition at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta.
